Monthly Archives: March 2015

Though many of us like to believe that we are able to get by on just a few hours of sleep each night, it’s just not true according to sleep scientists. The rule of thumb is that we all need somewhere between seven and nine hours of sleep each and every night in order to function at the top of our game, and though you may think that you are the exception to the rule, the truth is that it’s just your brain playing with you. Studies have shown that people who consistently get six hours of sleep are less are operating at much reduced cognitive ability, though they don’t realize that to be the case. Some scientists theorize that after a certain level of sleep deprivation, the brain no longer remembers what it felt like to function normally, and that’s why we feel like we are ‘just fine.” Continue reading →

The more we know about sleep, the more apparent it is that this basic bodily function is as integral to our wellbeing as eating and breathing. Getting the proper amount of sleep has been linked to improved overall health, and by contrast, sleep deprivation has a clear association with a number of serious chronic health conditions, including obesity, cardiovascular problems, diabetes 2, and an increased risk of degenerative brain disease as we age. One of the most fascinating aspects of how sleep can improve our lives is its role in improving and enhancing our memory skills, and researchers at Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina have been studying the phenomenon in order to provide better understanding. Continue reading →

A recent “Ask Me Anything” recently appeared on the social media site Reddit, focusing on the things that you really need to know about sleep. Hosted by Dr. Nitun Verma, a Stanford educated sleep doctor, the audience was able to take away a number of helpful hints about the importance of sleep and how to make sure that you’re getting enough of it. Here are some of the top points that he made: Continue reading →

The idea of being able to learn while we are asleep has always been incredibly intriguing – after all, wouldn’t it be great to be able to have a tape playing in your ears while you’re sleeping and learn a new language, or the material that you need to learn for a class or to achieve a certification? Though that specific method of learning has been disproven, that does not mean that we don’t learn in our sleep. In fact, a number of studies have established that there are certain things that can be learned while we are sleeping, and Israeli scientists have shown that a Pavlovian type of conditioning can be accomplished while we are sleeping, inducing the brain to create associations between one stimulus and another when our sense of odor is used as the unconditioned stimulus. Continue reading →

A new study that has just been published in the journal Neurology has revealed that people who regularly sleep more than eight hours per day have a greatly increased risk of suffering a stroke. The study was conducted by researchers at the University of Cambridge, where researchers followed nearly 10,000 people over a 9.5-year period. Continue reading →